Few Students Register to Vote

Homecoming court voting consistently receives huge turnouts from students at Osceola, with hundreds of students coming during lunch to participate. This year, electoral voting registration happened on the same day, but it received much less attention. According to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office, a total of nine students registered to vote. This is a similar number to previous years’ turnouts, the only outlier being 2013, when a voter registration presentation was given at school. Students are eligible to register even when they are 17, but it seems this fact has made little impact on voter registration turnouts.

Mr. Clay’s 2nd period World History students provide some reasoning behind these negative statistics. “It’s a lot of work and people feel like their vote won’t matter in the end”, said sophomore Isaiah Quezon. 10th grade student Ben Wagoner claimed that “most students aren’t into politics”. Mr. Clay said that students don’t register “because they feel like it’s not relevant to them now in their life”.

It’s clear that most students have very little desire to jump into the world of politics and government. But not all students share this complacency for voting. Sophomore student Amelia Caffey said, “They should register to vote because it’ll change the outcome of the election”. When Mr. Dunavin’s 2nd period class was asked if they had registered, seven students said they did and twelve said they had considered it. “I feel like my vote needed to be a part of the election,” one student said. While homecoming voting this year has retained its overwhelming success, it seems that, just like the last few years, electoral voting will remain sitting in far second place.